Optical sensing of colour print on paper by a diffractive optical element

A diffractive optical element (DOE) based sensor was applied to investigate optical surface quality of two different commercial laser print papers before and after printing of red, green and blue colour ink. The DOE sensor provides simultaneously information on both reflected and transmitted light, whereas a spectrophotometer, which was applied as a corroborative method, yields non-simultaneous information about the total reflection and transmission from the samples. The DOE sensor images were analysed and information concerning the local anisotropy of the paper was obtained. The border between a colour print and non-print was also investigated using the DOE sensor and a microdensitometer. It is proposed that the DOE sensor provides better resolution of the border than the microdensitometer.